oblation oblation oblation

Let me preface this blog entry with a rating. M15+. May contain nudity and or other forms of adult content. Some of you will now be hooked on this blog out of intrigue, or perhaps a few of you have run away from fear of any genitalia related topics. Those of you who have stayed have braved the world of adult content, perhaps because you are in fact adults, or alternatively a perverse sicko. Either way, those of you who have stuck by me, I promise to give you vast amounts of said nudity.


Before I get to that however, I will start as always, at the beginning of the week, and run you through what some people might see as a monotonous and uninteresting life, or what some might see as a little glimpse into my wonderful (and yes, sometimes monotonous and uninteresting) life.


Actually scratch that, I will ignore the boring stuff, and just share with you a few little nuggets of gold that was my week.
Unfortunately I managed to get a nasty little cold for the earlier part of the week, which kept me a little bed ridden for the majority of the week, however I was determined to get better so that I may enjoy the end of the week, which I could experience the UP Oblation Run, Social Work department Christmas party, and of course my flight home to Australia for Christmas.


The start of the week, my housemates and I decided to bring some humble Christmas cheer into our house by having our own little Christmas celebration. We went out to dinner in this gorgeous little treasure of a find (feeling very pirate right now) in this little organic café. And to my immense surprise, HELLO TO VEGETABLE STIRFRY! Even better, the stir fry had copious amounts of different vegetables, and possibly the first time in the last 6 weeks that I have had so much vegies (bad vegetarian, bad! *whacks nose with newspaper*)
We came home to exchange our secret Santa presents – Thanks to miss Cathy I got some lovely necklaces (I believe the angry birds one was the best, haha) as well as some sealing wax, a miniature red top hat (jealous much? It’s amazing) and a masquerade t-shirt. Needless to say Miss Cathy, you did a terrific job of figuring me out :P.
We sang some Christmas carols together (some may say in a loser-like manner, but I prefer to think of it as setting the trends for the cool kids to follow).

Then of course I managed to get a cold, and watching many episodes of ‘The Office’ became my thing, aside from doing assignments at Starbucks. It sadly occurred to me that I might be frequenting the lovely air-conditioned Starbucks near our house for their free Wi-Fi a little too much, when the workers greeted me by my name. What is worse is that they greeted me by my fake Philippines use only, coffee name. Having a name that is difficult for people to grasp in Melbourne sometimes, and even a coffee name that some Melbournites have difficulty with too (hello- ‘BRubee’ incident anyone??) I decided to go with a name that was easy to pronounce; Emma. So when they are greeting you with “Good Morning Emma” you know it’s time to start splitting your time between Starbucks and Coffee bean & Tea Leaf.


Friday came around and it was time for the famous UP fraternity oblation run. Hold onto your seats ladies and gentlemen, this is where the nudity comes!
We made our way to the front of Palma Hall, where once a year, one of the university’s fraternities takes part in, what is basically, a nudie run. However the ‘oblation’ run serves as a form of political protest, with a new cause being picked each year. It is about giving their all, in a raw form. This started back in the 1970’s and continues to this day. Of course each of their identities are kept secret with brightly coloured masks. I suppose to stop the locals playing a big game of ‘match that wang’ with people they may know and also to keep the focus solely on the political issue at hand. Although I have been told that a lot of the local girls who have come from far off provinces and conservative families go along, because they have never been exposed to the naked male form, and curiousity gets the better of them. Either way, it serves for an interesting afternoon.




The cause they chose this year was conservation of the Philippine rivers. About 20 boys marched out in all their glory and fought their way through the crowd. We could barely see them as we were up the back, but it sure caused a commotion. Suddenly the crowd parted ways, much like the red sea in biblical references, and we realized they were headed our way. So we backed up until we were stopped by a fence. Next thing you know, the boys were right in front of us by about a quarter of a meter and posing for the media. Meanwhile, three Australian students (that’s us!) could be found behind them giggling like little school girls. Actually, the funniest thing of all would have been Tania’s complete look of shock at finding around 20 naked bums right in front of her. Not sure how we managed to get stuck behind all of this, but, they do say that you should throw yourself into the thick of the cultural experiences!

All the boys have a handful of roses that they carry with them to give to a girl they think is pretty, so little miss Cathy managed to get two roses off one boy, and another Filipino girl trapped with us got a sneaky kiss on the cheek, and a rose as well. Definitely the perfect opportunity to let rip the line “who was that masked man?” followed by a sigh…or in this case a fit of giggles.


Once the nudity disappeared we headed over to the social work department for a little festive shindig. One thing I have noticed about the Filipino’s is they absolutely love putting on ‘talent shows’ at every possible occasion. Fair enough since a lot of them are actually talented, however sucky for us because as the novelty Australian students there is an expectation that we perform at all of these events; even when you don’t want to. We tried using the excuse that as the main singer, I was sick and therefore couldn’t possibly partake, but alas we had to anyway (mostly thanks to Tania forcing it upon us… Sleep with one eye open buddy! Them mouse babies will find their way up your nose canals shortly!) We had a little boogie, played some games and finally got up to sing ‘lean on me’. It was then time for me to depart to the airport to make my way to Western Australia for a family gathering; Dad’s 50th and my sisters 21st.

It was actually a wonderful couple of days in Perth catching up with my extended family. Unfortunately living on the other side of the country as them doesn’t provide much opportunities to spend a lot of time together, and it would have been about 3 years since I was last able to see them all. We had barbecues by the river, and picnics in the park, and copious amounts of delicious wine and food. Oh how I have missed real food and greenery. Needless to say I am glad I came home for this festivity.
As for right now, I am on a plane back to Melbourne for a week or so, typing up this blog in a word document to pass the time, ready to post when I return home tonight (after greeting the dogs of course, I know my priorities!)
Perhaps I will talk to you all again before Christmas, but if not, Feliz Navidad, prospero año y felicidad.


Much love, B xoxox

renovations, naughts and crosses, and being pointed out as white

drumroll ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for has arrived!!
It is the time for another installment in my (currently not so) wacky adventures!

I wish i had more exciting things to tell you at the moment, however the week wasn't exactly filled with bungee jumping and exotic new lands. sigh. It was however filled with, wait for it.... UNIVERSITY!!...oh that was a bit of a let down. sorry for building it up so much!

So i left you on monday where i was procrastinating on assignments (nothing new there really). So I also began using my internet usage to look up flights to some more exotic places. currently in my head i am going to India for a friends wedding in January (if i can organise a visa in time) and I am completely thrilled about that. I have always wanted to go to an Indian wedding!! (congrats Hardeep!)
I am also pondering that after my time in the Philippines, I would go to thailand for a week or so, and then pondered on whether or not to continue travelling asia, or to go to the UK, Spain and maybe Greece.... yep, so i started looking up flights to Europe, haha. Wishful thinking on my behalf really because I doubt i would have the funding for these trips, but one can hope and dream!
I also began looking up weekend trips to Malaysia while I am here (and apparently i will have to leave the country end of march, just to re-enter the philippines to renew my visa. being forced to see another country, life is tough.)

So after my procrastinating i finally got on to doing my assignments (with Tania sending me to my room all night every time i tried to use her for my own distraction purposes) and voila, i finished them both!

So tuesday i got myself all ready to go print them off at uni, and scurried off to my classes. My Shakespeare teacher fell up the stairs on her way to class, so she gave us an activity sheet to do while she went to the medical center. so we got into groups and talked about each character in a Midsummer Nights dream. My next class i sat in for half an hour only to discover that the teacher wasn't going to turn up (no surprise there, having this class twice a week for the last 5 weeks i have only seen her twice...) so, i had been forced to write my essay for no reason. poop on that situation.

I then went to go shopping and get a present for our housemates Kris Kringle and pretty much became a couch potato in front of the fan for the rest of the day. i aim high in life.

Wednesday we went to class again at 8:30, still needing to do our presentation from a week and a half earlier, but our teacher hadn't been there. Turns out our teacher didn't turn up again and a sub came in. He took us up to a Human Rights forum (which we were hoping to bail on class to go see anyway). It was interesting...sort of, i think they needed to work on keeping the audience more captivated as they just spouted facts that I am pretty sure everyone knew (since the majority of people there were studying social work anyway, or were social workers) and so they lost Tania and my attention, so we doodled in my workbook playing naughts and crosses (i opened a can of whoop ass on that one!) and connect four amongst other games (pretty sure tania rigged connect four, i could not have possibly lost to her, lol)

Thursday was just as thrilling. Actually my Shakespeare class was enjoyable (as always, seriously am i starting to sound really pretentious and annoying with my love for this class???). Never before have i been pointed out in the class, but the teacher was telling everyone the difference between someone in the play having fair or dark features - I am pretty sure her words were, "so, something you need to realise is that when shakespeare's characters are described as having dark features, he doesn't mean they are dark skinned, which is something you might not realised because we are all the same colour....except B, but while B is white, she would not be classified with fair features, she would have dark features because of her eyes and hair" ........and for a good 5 minutes all eyes in the class were looking at me. yep, not awkward at all.
AAAAAAND as per usual, my next teacher didn't turn up again but left us with a 600 page book to read and analyse in 3 days. that sneaky bastard. Not sure how this is supposed to work lady, let me at her i say! No, don't hold me back - I'll scratch her eyes out!

SO - I caught up with Tan in our break and we got into a giant D&M about what we were thinking about the Philippines. pretty much my thoughts for the day were that i would rather be doing a placement here and getting involved in the community in that kind of way, rather than spending my time reading so much pointless readings and getting nothing out of my classes (except for shakespeare of course). I feel like there is so much more i could be doing with my time, and i want to get involved with organisations. It's a bit hard to explain the feeling, but maybe you understand what I am trying to say?
Either way, our teacher said we didn't have to stay in class because she wanted to go elsewhere and the other students wanted to work on their float for the Universities lantern parade. The lantern parade is apparently huge here, and all the departments in the university make a float and then..well parade it. I unfortunately won't be there to see it as i will be back on a plane to visit the wonderful world of Aus for christmas. I will however be there for the famous U.P. nudie run, where a fraternity of boys get their kit off, wear masks and run naked through the campus. apparently it's supposed to be an act of freedom every year, and I have been informed that alot of girls go to watch because being a conservative country, the majority have never seen a penis before. go figure. so, as at the start of our stay in the philippines, the Education abroad office told us it was all part of the cultural experience, so we will be watching the nudie boys run (anyone else got that quote from Juno in their head "all i see are pork swords" - sorry nanny, mum and dad, but since you raised me, you have to expect these things. this is me watching what i say :P)

ANYHOO, so Friday came around, and we went to class at 8:30am once again, and our teacher was not there...again. So we had a sub, and he spent ages talking about economics (i hate economics) and i got quite lost. We did however find out that divorce does not happen in the Philippines due to their religious ways, and they asked us if there was divorce in Australia. Cathy and I had to laugh, because of the 'HELL YES' response we would have given otherwise. Would 'hell' have been an appropriate word to use here? probably not, but we do use it often. sorry guys! :P

Friday evening we were going to go on an overnight bus to see the rice terraces up north, however thanks to the tropical rain storms happening, that was unlikely. This occured all weekend so we weren't able to go, so instead friday night we went to the gym and to see ' New Years Eve' and on saturday Cathy, Tania and I made our way to the national museum, and the national art gallery. Well, the art gallery was being renovated, so there was about three rooms, and the museum has very little also. biiiit of a let down. I had to spend the entire time stopping Tania from touching everything, and eventually had to hold her hands behind her back like a prisoner. She is like a child, so i nearly made her join the school excursion we kept passing. Sure, there was a struggle, but what ya gonna do. :P

This brings us to today, Sunday. Tan made her merry way to church while the rest of us went to the gym. I love the instructor on a sunday for body jam. He is so flamboyant, and gets into the moves like its no ones business. He even got us shaking our hips to ricky martin. yes, thats right; Ricky Martin. again our abs got a work out from the giggling. He even shimmying in my face. which made the ab workout even better, haha. The afternoon was spent singing while Cathy learned to play christmas carols on the Uke, Tan played the guitar and I tried to learn the keyboard (unsuccessfully)

And now, i am here talking to you lovely lovely people (scratch the two 'lovely's'). I will be back in Oz in 6 days time, and back in Melbourne in 10 days time ready for some christmas cheer. Hope to catch up with you all.

Lots of love, hugs and happy drugs
B xoxox



at Manila bay in the tropical rain storm.


Art in the Gallery


hanging in a park between downpours.

We're in Manila still

So here we are again, ready for a new installment in the saga that is my new Filipino lifestyle. Now according to miss Daisy, my blog is thoroughly entertaining when i am bitching about something. So, as per Daisy's request, I shall endeavour to through in some angsty and bitchy comments where possible. You are welcome Daisy, i expect a round the world ticket for sacrificing my positivity for your entertainment benefits. :) I will also accept payment in the form of chocolate, and/or cuddles.

So begins a new week. Monday we spent the time finishing off some uni assignments, (ohhh the drama, i know i have you hooked from sentence numero uno!) and well, that was a dull day. However Tuesday popped around and I went to my Shakespeare class as per usual on a tuesday (yipee!) and we have begun studying A Midummer Night's Dream; one of my favourite plays. perhaps my liking this play has something to do with the fact that there are fairies and mischief, and possibly because it reminds me of our year 7 school production 'In your Dreams' to which the infamous Shimmy King and I randomly burst into rendition of. Or perhaps it is all of the above. Either way, I really like it, and its a brilliant play to start with :)
MY Comparative literature teacher actually showed up this week, and started talking about a vikings romance story we had been reading, and then proceeded to assign us an assignment. Ofcourse, as things 'roll' here in the Philippines, I had to ask when it was due. She responded with next week before changing her mind and saying "Actually, since tomorrow is a public holiday, you can hand it in on Thursday because it means you have the entire day to do it tomorrow". I must have given her a dirty "oh hell no!" look because she took one look at me, and said "actually, no lets make it next tuesday..."
Darn tootin! who the hell expects people to spend their entire public holiday writing an essay, especially for the Filipino students who also take another 5 subjects twice a week. INSANITY!

Now tune in here miss Dais, because Wednesday appeared to be the day of the housemate 'bitch-a-thon'. Being a public holiday, we endeavoured to go to a park for the day, however having no clue how to get there, we instead decided to get some work done, and to hop off to the gym. So off to the gym we went in the arvo to do a class and make use of their free wifi. But ofcourse getting anywhere here in the Philipppines takes an hour, even to get 3 kms away due to the insane traffic. The traffic here is, well, MADNESS. sure, there are lines on the road, but nobody takes any notice of the lanes, they drive where they want to, don't use indicators, just honk at each other, swerve in and out of cars and trucks, and the taxi's have no seatbelts either. So, i have decided looking out the window just sets me off in a panic attack thinking that i am going to die. So after we arrived at the gym and took our skype calls etc, we went to do our gym class...and ofcourse because of the public holiday it wasn't running, but it took 4 people to let us know that, as they kept pawning us off onto someone else. So, we grumbled and left, and when we arrived home, Cathy, Erin and I, had ourselves a little grumble (as i mentioned earlier, living here feels like living with Bipolar, our moods seems to swing from one extreme to the other) and poor tania, came home after a day of awesomeness volunteering with kids, and walked into our ultimate grumble session, to which then we had to complete a group assignment together.

The next day seemed to get better, atleast for me, however poor erin jumped out of a taxi, and then the taxi reversed into her and just drove off.... ahhhh Manila, only you could do that. So after my Shakespeare class (loved it!) and my Comparative Lit class (to which, once again my teacher didn't show up to) Cathy and I decided to go to a nice restaurant to bring up our moods. I waited for her until her class finished, and hung out in the Literature library. My mood elevated quickly when i saw that ALL of their books were very old hard copies of all the classics, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, and more. I had severe nerd-gasms walking through the aisles checking out every single book they had. Tania then messaged me to tell me she wasn't feeling great and wouldn't be coming to our next class. She also told me that she hoped i had brought my umbrella with me. Confused, because the morning was incredibly hot, i asked her why i would need my umbrella, to which she responded "You aren't near a window right now, are you?" I stepped out of the library, to see torrential downpour. The weather here can change in a second, and when it rains, it doesn't do it half assed. Thankfully Cathy had her umbrella, and I had a plastic binder folder, and we made our way in the pouring rain to the restaurant. It was called 'The Chocolate Kiss' and just so happened to be on campus. However we turned up there DRENCHED, but got excited when we saw real food on the menu. I got an eggplant parma and we stuffed ourselves silly of food. DELIGHT!
My next class was Community Organising, and we had to present an autobiography of ourselves. Very, very awkward, but spent the three hours listening to people explain their history's. it was a handy way to get a background info on each of my class mates without having to use small talk. I hate small talk.

Friday 8:30am, we were to present our group presentation with our teacher who has decided that social work is all about economics (dipshit), so we got their bright and early, aaaaand dn dn dnnnnnnn.... he didn't turn up! Cue, grumbles. What i found funny was that as soon as we found out, the other girls in our class whipped out their nail polish and sat there painting their nails, haha. Turns out, always come prepared!

Cath and I went home for a quick nap before heading off to the shops to do some Christmas shopping, and then head to the gym. We took a Pilates class and it turns out I have no core muscle strength, and I am not quite as flexible as i used to be. doh!

Saturday, our plan was to go to waterfalls, however Tania, convinced us to come along to this volunteer day with the children who are victims of military abuse. So we headed to the gym in the morning, and tried to make our way to this volunteer place. we got incredibly lost for a while (goooooood directions tan :P) and finally made it. The kids were really cute and sweet, and we spoke to a few of the workers of the organisation. They seemed very excited to have us there, even though we weren't actually doing anything. They even dragged us up to be in their big group photo. They explained some other volunteer days, and I, for one, am definitely keen to do more work with them. Hopefully there will be more opportunity in the new year for this.

Our subdivision had a Christmas party on Saturday night, so we went along to this and everyone brought a dish of food. They also had a talent show, to which Erin and Cathy decided we would partake in. P.s. I hate you guys. I have massive stage fright, and somehow I had to partake because I would be the main singer in our little band. We sang Slow Club's 'Christmas Tv', and i spent the entire time shaking, voice cracking, and wanting to die. Did i mention i had stage fright and i am now plotting the death of my house mates? lol. Not to mention they got some of the new friends we made that night to film it. The film will never see the light of day!!
There were some younger girls who sang as well, and wow they are so talented! I couldn't believe how there were so many young talented girls in playing instruments and singing. When we tried to sneak off on occasion the presenter would say on the microphone "Don't leave Australians, come sit over here!", so i wonder if we were told to stay because we were a novelty. Anyhoo, we decided to sneak off again at the end, and they gave us a little 'prize' for partaking in the show. Win for getting an angry birds coffee set! hahahaha. Seriously, there is a HUGE obsession with angry birds. I remember one night when i was obsessed with angry birds back home and used up all of Kyles iphone battery.... hahahaha.

Afterwards, Cathy, Erin and I decided to get our boogy on, so we got ourselves dressed up and went into Makati to hit the clubs. We found an awesome one with awesome music called 'Republiq' and spent the next few hours dancing the night away, although i remember why i love Australia's law of not smoking inside clubs. We crawled our way into bed at 4:30am, ready for Tania's alarm to go off at 5am for her to make her way to church.

While Tania was at church we decided to finish up some Christmas shopping and headed our way into Makati once more. I had found this amazing vegetarian restaurant online, so we stopped there for breakfast/lunch/dinner (mostly because we stuffed ourselves silly) with the most AMAZING food. I was in vegetarian heaven. As there is hardly ANY, and i mean NO, vegetarian food here in the Philippines, when i find somewhere like this, i overdo the amount of food i eat. We tried the entree's of carrot soup, spring rolls, and spinach and fetta croquettes (amazing!!) and then Kofta balls (i am pretty sure i died and went to heaven with this one!) and a vegetarian nut roast, and then ofcourse banoffee pie for dessert. When i say we stuffed ourselves silly, i am not exaggerating. The menu had SO much to choose from, and it all looked delicious!! and everything we tried was DELICIOUS!

We headed to a health food store, so that we could stock up on some healthier options for our pantry, and then finished our shopping before heading back home in our food induced coma and all watching movies on our laptops. Lovely :)

That brings us to today. We woke up, needing to do assignment work, and spent a good hour watching the kittens and cat that had made a playground of our little courtyard. We named the Mother Bermuda (or muda) and the Kittens are now called Cinnamon, Sirus, Zona aaaand Gubba. What a good way to procrastinate :)

Anyhoo, now i suppose i should write these two essays that i need for tomorrow's classes, and the two readings i need also.

I hope i had inserted enough bitching for you miss Dais, if not i shall try to remedy this situation :) turns out I am not in the bitching mood right now, as both my assignments are literature ones and i enjoy it *cough* NERD! *cough*

There is now less than two weeks until I am back in Australia for Christmas, and hopefully i will be able to catch up with some of you then before I make my way back to the beautiful city that is Manila.... HAHAHAHA, well i think my jokes are funny :P

Love B xoxo